Raiding Specs [updated 1.28.2010]

53/14/4
This basic build includes all the important BM talents, with floaters that can be assigned at the hunter's discretion:

Hunter self-preservation floater -- 1 point
One point in the lower part of the BM tree can be devoted to slightly improving your chance of surviving if things go wrong:
1/2 Endurance Training -- increase your and your pet's health
1/3 Imp Aspect of the Monkey -- increase your dodge; useful for kiting or when a mob comes for you

Pet health floaters -- 4 points
There are 4 points in the lower part of the BM tree to devote to your choice of pet health-related talents that can be used in the following ways:
2/2 Imp Revive Pet -- highly recommended
2/2 Spirit Bond -- recommended; increases healing to you and your pet
2/2 Imp Mend Pet -- use if your pet is not being cleansed or healed by the raid healers and is dying frequently
1/2 Spirit Bond + 1/2 Imp Mend Pet -- if you just can't decide
2/5 Endurance Training -- useful for solo; not recommended for raiding
2/5 Thick Hide -- useful for solo; not recommended for raiding

Hunter DPS floaters -- 2 points
There are 2 "extra" points in the MM or SV trees to use in damage talents. Use the spreadsheet to determine where these points will work best for your current gear set-up; results can vary as your attack power and crit increase:
2/2 Survival Instincts -- reduces damage taken in addition to increasing crit for Arcane and Steady Shot
4/5 Mortal Shots (2/5 MS is required to take Go for the Throat) -- further increase crit bonus on all shots
2/3 Imp Arcane Shot -- increase damage done by Arcane Shot
2/3 Focused Aim -- if you need more hit than your gear provides
2/2 Go for the Throat + 1 point in any of the above (1/2 GftT is a "must have") -- take the second point in GftT if your unbuffed crit is below 25% or if you find your pet is focus-starved at lower gear levels; with changes in pet focus regen in 3.1, testing is needed to establish a minimum crit level for taking 1/2 GftT
2/2 Invigoration or 1/2 Invigoration + 1 point in any of the above -- if you find yourself spending a lot of time in Viper

NOTE: As gear levels go up, the MM tree talents such as Mortal Shots and even Focused Aim begin to pull ahead of the SV tree talents Survival Instincts and Imp Tracking.

Focused Aim [updated 1.24.2010]
Formerly a huge damage loss for BM hunters as the hit gained was not transmitted to the pet, since 3.1 FA affects the pet, making this a viable source of hit. With T9 and T10 level gear, it is in many cases preferable to get hit from FA and use better pieces of gear -- check the spreadsheet to determine if this is the case for you. (It is also useful for new raiders lacking hit on their gear.)
NOTE: There is a bug with the way that hit from Focused Aim is transferring to pet expertise -- raid logs show it is transferring about half the expertise it should. This bug has existed since the introduction of 3.2 and is persisting in 3.3. I am running some tests to try to further define the effect. [1.28.2010]

Frenzy
Note that only 3/5 points are necessary in Frenzy; adding a 4th point adds almost no dps so this extra point becomes one of the 4 hunter/pet health floaters.

[Other raid damage-focused builds with rationale are welcome and will be added if they emerge!]


Glyphs

The following glyphs are not reserved for the BM spec, but tend to provide excellent synergy for the spec -- try them in the spreadsheet to see what works for you.

Major: [updated 1.26.2010]

[Glyph of Steady Shot] -- highly recommended
[Glyph of the Hawk] -- highly recommended
[Glyph of Serpent Sting] -- highly recommended
[Glyph of Bestial Wrath] -- less useful in light of changes to Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within in 3.2
[Glyph of Kill Shot] -- looks good in spreadsheet, but in actual practice most bosses may not live long enough below 20% health to get in an extra shot
[Glyph of the Beast] -- situational; not recommended for raiding


Minor: [updated 4.7.2009]
[Glyph of Mend Pet] --allows the pet to gain happiness in combat -- recommended (NOTE: This glyph is bugged in 3.0 and does not work if you have taken Imp Mend Pet. It remains to be seen if this will be fixed in 3.1)
[Glyph of Feign Death] -- allows more frequent aggro dumps -- aggro is usually not a huge issue for BM hunters, but it's better than nothing
[Glyph of Revive Pet] -- allows a faster pet rez during pushback spells -- not extremely useful but better than nothing
[Glyph of Possessed Strength] -- recent testing shows that this glyph would not perform well in a raid setting; not recommended


Gems [updated 1.30.2010]

Red gems are typically going to be your best damage boost; at low gear levels Attack Power is usually bestYellow gems can also be good if you need a yellow socket to complete a good socket bonus. It is almost never worth using a blue gem to complete a socket bonus -- if a bonus requires a blue gem you will almost always be better off socketing all red. The only exception to this is the one blue gem you will need to activate your meta -- use a Nightmare Tear in the blue socket that will give you the best bonus.

See WotLK Gem Index for Hunters by Faerdael for complete gem information and always use the spreadsheet to be sure.

Here are some guidelines specifically for BM hunters:

Meta:
Relentless Earthsiege Diamond -- requires 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 blue to activate



Red sockets:
Bright Cardinal Ruby -- consider using if you are under 3500 unbuffed AP
Delicate Cardinal Ruby -- best all-around hunter gem
Fractured Cardinal Ruby -- if you are over 550 total ArPen, start checking whether Fractured Cardinal Ruby would be better with the raid buffs and debuffs you usually have

Yellow sockets:
Deadly Ametrine
Glinting Ametrine or Rigid King's Amber if you need to make up hit
Delicate or Fractured Cardinal Ruby if the socket bonus is not useful

Blue sockets:
Nightmare Tear in blue socket that gives best bonus
Delicate or Fractured Cardinal Ruby in all others

Always use the spreadsheet to determine your best gems for each socket.
NOTE: Use common sense -- if your piece has a blue socket and you get higher dps substituting a red gem, then put red gems in any yellow sockets too since the bonus is already lost.



Shot priority [updated 3.1.2010]
[credit to Nooska for original information]

Kill Shot
Arcane Shot
Multi-shot/Aimed Shot (optional)
Serpent Sting
Steady Shot

This priority is suggested by the true damage values of each shot; since we as Beastmasters are only limited by the GCD, always use the highest damage shot available.

Refresh SrS before its final tick if it will drop off before your steady lands, but not if Kill Shot or Arcane Shot are available.

Do not refresh SrS if the boss's Time To Live is very low -- you will lose more damage by using the GCD on SrS than you would by losing the bonus on Steady Shots from [Glyph of Steady Shot].

Leave Multi-Shot out of the rotation if mana is becoming an issue.

When your Armor Pen gets high enough, leave Arcane Shot out of the rotation as another Steady Shot will do more damage. When do you have enough Armor Pen? Check the spreadsheet using your own gear and usual raid buffs.

[If anyone has created a viable spec including Aimed Shot, I would be interested to see it!]


Cooldowns

Bestial Wrath should be used as often as it's ready, in conjunction with Kill Command and pet specials with a long cooldown (eg Savage Rend or Serenity Dust). Save Call of the Wild and your "on use" trinkets for the next BW whenever they are ready. Bestial Wrath should also be used with Heroism/Bloodlust whenever possible; usually this will be near the beginning of the fight if your shamans are on the ball. Some bosses will call for burst damage later in the fight and Heroism may well be saved until then; if you know Heroism is coming when the boss is at 35% or whatever, try to save that third BW for it.

If you get Heroism/Bloodlust during your first BW, you can use Rapid Fire during the second one. [Potion of Speed] is nice for the third one if you didn't need a health or mana potion.

The following "Enrage" macro is useful; use it whenever Bestial Wrath is cooled down:



#showtooltip Bestial Wrath/cast [rel="nofollow" target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command/cast [rel="nofollow" target=pettarget, exists] Call of the Wild/cast [rel="nofollow" target=pettarget, exists] <other pet special>/use 13/use 14/cast Bestial Wrath
NOTE: If you are going to use Call of the Wild in a macro, be sure and click it "off" on your pet's action bar.

Aspects

Spreadsheet modeling has shown that talented, glyphed Aspect of the Dragonhawk will give the best damage. Use Aspect of the Viper only when necessary to regain mana, and spend as little time in it as possible; if the fight is more than half over there is no need to remain in Viper until your mana bar is refilled -- just regain enough mana to finish the fight. Under certain circumstances Aspect of the Beast may be more effective, eg if you are kiting adds while your pet attacks the boss.


Raiding Pets

It is assumed that a raiding hunter will use a Ferocity pet for maximum raid damage, although there has been some experimentation with Cunning pets for specific circumstances. With the equalization of pets in 3.1 (Cunning, Ferocity and Tenacity pets now all have +5% damage, +5% armor and +5% health bonuses), other types of pets may become viable although spreadsheet modeling to date (v.86c) shows Cunning and Tenacity pets well below Ferocity in damage output.

Non-exotics: [updated 1.24.2010]
Wolves --wolves are an excellent choice for raiding due Furious Howl affecting both hunter and pet, and stacking with other AP-enhancing raid buffs; very close to devilsaur in combined hunter/pet damage
Raptors -- look good in the spread sheet due to assumption that Savage Rend damage will occur under ideal circumstances (ie after a crit) and the damage being averaged out over the fight; streaky damage that may or may not come through when you need it
Moths -- intriguing percent-based special that may scale well at very high gear levels; disappointingly, modeling with v.86d shows the moth will not out-scale the wolf until the hunter has in excess of 20K AP
Cats -- not competitive since 3.1
Scorpids (Tenacity) -- the darling of 3.0 raiding prior to 3.0.8, scorpids' poison debuff no longer stacks; like any Tenacity pet, scorpids have sub-par damage for raiding; not recommended

Exotics [updated 2.4.2010]
Devilsaurs -- highest damage pet. New for 3.3! It's been reported that as of 3.3 the devilsaur hitbox issues have been resolved, the model no longer becomes huge with stacks of Monstrous Bite, and it no longer stomps when walking; with the resolution of these issues, the devilsaur becomes a very attractive pet for raiding.
Spirit beasts -- better damage than in 3.0, though not as much as a wolf or a devilsaur; four spirit beasts currently exist in the game -- there seems to be one added with each major patch. Mostly for looks.
Core hounds -- similar damage to spirit beasts in the spreadsheet

Pet talents [updated 1.24.2010]
To raid as BM it is imperative to take the 51 point talent, Beast Mastery. Whether to use an exotic pet is the individual hunter's choice, but the additional 4 pet talent points will be essential to get all the damage-enhancing pet talents, including Wild Hunt and Shark Attack. You will want a Ferocity pet.

DPS pet spec 1
My personal choice of talents includes Dash for movement speed and 2/2 Bloodthirsty for survivability/happiness.

DPS pet spec 2
Alternative spec favored by Har takes Charge for movement speed, 1/3 Great Stamina for survivability, and has one extra point that should be spent in Bloodthirsty.

Pet stats [updated 1.30.2010]
Hunter pets "inherit" the following stats from their owners:
Hit (100%) -- if the hunter is hit-capped (8% via a combination of gear and Focused Aim points), the pet will be melee hit-capped and spell hit-capped. In theory, the pet should also be expertise capped, however there is a bug whereby the hit from Focused Aim is not fully transferred to pet expertise. Hit from Focused Aim does transfer correctly.
Ranged Attack Power (22%) -- the pet talent Wild Hunt (3.1) increases this by 30%
Stamina (30%) -- the pet talent Wild Hunt (3.1) increases this by 40%
Armor (35%)
Magic resistances (40%) -- race-based magic school resistances are percent based and do not appear on the character sheet and thus presumably do not transfer to the pet

Pets inherit Agility (and Intellect if you have 3/3 Careful Aim) only indirectly, as it raises the hunter's Attack Power.

Pets do not inherit Strength, Spirit, Crit, Haste, Resilience, or Armor Pen.

Pets do not inherit the XP bonus found on heirloom shoulders.

NOTE: Hit (and thus also expertise) is transferred to pets as an integer, not including any fractions (for example, 7.99% transfers as 7%, while 8.03% transfers as 8%), therefore it is important to be fully hit-capped. [Tested 1.25.2010 and still true in 3.3]

NOTE: Heroic Presence (Draenai +1 hit aura) does not transfer expertise to pets. [1.28.2010]

› See More: Beast Master Dps Pve(3.3.3 Updated)